crystal, a river of glass, so clear as itself to be unseen, on
whose surface floated this navy of a dream such as the world
itself had never imagined.
Now and again, like a fly on water, there darted from one side to
the other a tiny boat, in the blue and silver of the city guards,
or dropped, ducked and vanished; now and again it wheeled, and
came whirling up the line, vanishing at last in the long
perspective. But, for the rest, the monsters waited motionless in
the sunlight, their state-cloths, hung as from the old barges,
from stem to stern, as motionless as themselves, except when now
and again the summer breeze stirred from the south-west, lifting
the lazy streamers, wafting softly the heavy embroideries, and
stirring, even as the wind stirs the wheat, the glittering giants
that waited to do their Lord honour.
Opposite the air-barge where the watcher sat, perhaps a hundred
yards away, floated the royal boat, between a pair of warships,
one blaze of scarlet, blue, and gold, flapping out the Royal
Standard of England, and flashing the glass of the stern-cabin as
the great creature rocked gently now and again in the breeze; and
upon its deck rose up the canopy where the king and his consort
sat together, and the line of scarlet guards visible behind. On
the warships on either side the crew waited, the ship itself
dressed as for a review, every man motionless at his post, with
the crash of brass sounding from the lower decks. And so down the
line the eye of the watcher went again and again, fascinated by
the beauty and the glory, down past where the great ducal barges
hung, each in order, past the officers of state, past the
Parliament barges, down to where the boats, in numbers beyond all
reckoning, faded away into the haze.
To those who looked across to where the man himself sat the
sight must have been no less amazing. For he sat there, in his
new dress of Cardinal's scarlet, on the throne of ceremony
beneath his canopy with his attendants about him, on a wide deck
laid down with scarlet, its prow crowned by the silver cross--a
silent watching figure, with a splendour of romance about him
more suggestive even than the material glory that showed his
newly won dignity.
There was not a soul there in those astounding crowds, whether
among those who, hanging here between heaven and earth, awaited
for the ceremonial reception, the coming of him who was Vicar of
one and Lord of the other, or even among those incalculable
multitudes beneath, who packed the streets, crowded the flat roofs
and looked from every window. It was this man, they knew, this
tiny red figure, sitting solitary and motionless, who scarcely
three months before had stood before the revolutionary Council of
Berlin, of his own will and choice--who had gone there and faced
what seemed a certain death, for love of the old man whose body
now lay beneath the high-altar of the tremendous cathedral
beneath, and to whose office and honours he had succeeded, and for
the sake of the message he had carried. It was this man, alone of
the whole Christian world, who after looking into the face of
death, not for himself only, but for one who was dearer to him and
to that Christian world than life itself, had seen in one moment
the last storm roll away from human history for ever; who had seen
with his own eyes, Christ in His Vicar--_Princeps gloriosus_ come
at last--take the power and reign.
He too was conscious of all this, at least subconsciously, as he
sat motionless, a figure carved in ivory, a man who had found
peace at last. Here, in the contemplating brain, as with his eyes
he looked over the vast city of London, enormous and exquisite